Scotland in Europe Update 7th July 2017

posted by Patrick Robertshaw | July 07, 2017

Another week, another lie of the Leave campaign exposed for what it was. This time, it was the turn of the nonsense peddled about Turkey’s application to join the EU. My fellow MEPs and I passed a further report on Turkey’s application to join the EU. It re-stated our position to freeze all membership negotiations. For those of you interested, point 7 is the key line:

“[The European Parliament] Recalls its position from November 2016 to freeze the accession process with Turkey;”

Unfortunately, it is currently falling to EU politicians to step in and be honest to the UK about what Brexit means. Michel Barnier, chief negotiator for the EU, has been pointing out what I have said for months: the ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ line is both dangerous and inaccurate. This was the focus of an important speech he made earlier this week that is well worth a read:

“I want to be very clear: in a classic negotiation, ‘no deal' means a return to the status quo. In the case of Brexit, ‘no deal' would be a return to a distant past.” Michel Barnier

Too many politicians (Corbyn included) are simply playing along with the Brexit fantasists rather than being honest. As I argued in my column this week, a second indyref isn’t going to happen immediately but all options, including the UK as a whole changing course away from Brexit, must be left on the table.

Ian Dunt summed up Michael Gove’s actions well as “meaningless, strategically counter-productive and designed primarily to make reactionaries feel better about themselves.” If you wish to understand the issues surrounding the London Fisheries Convention his article is a great summary.

The UK should continue “full and continued engagement” with EU higher education programmes, according to an EU Report from the independent High Level Group on maximising the impact of EU Research & Innovation.